


Alone in the Dark

by anxiousAnarchist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, M/M, gratuitous fluff, the most gratuitous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:16:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousAnarchist/pseuds/anxiousAnarchist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Sometimes, when you have nightmares about Sburb, you think you have them about the wrong things.</i></p><p><i>Like how empty the journey through the veil was. How there were no stars. How you felt as if you could float off at any second, into the nothing, and no one would ever find you. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Originally for the kinkmeme, seen here - http://homesmut.livejournal.com/11895.html?thread=21380215#t21380215.
> 
> Also there is fanart let me just sit here and make gleeful noises. http://zilleniose.tumblr.com/post/13044344837/for-this-adorable-kink-meme-fill-i-have-such-a

Sometimes, when you have nightmares about Sburb, you think you have them about the wrong things!

Rose says that that's not true, that anything from the game is up for grabs for nightmare material, but still, sometimes, you think you are all together too terrified by little things.

Like how when you looked at Jack Noir it wasn't so much that he was a dark be-winged devil as he was an absence of light.

Or how when you perched on the edge of the cliff in LOWAS and looked at the dark sky you thought, this might be the last thing I ever see.

How the inky nothing around your house when the game first started seemed to expand to fill the whole universe, how it made you feel like everything you knew could fall over at any second.

(and how everything did)

How empty the journey through the veil was. How there were no stars. How you felt as if you could float off at any second, into the nothing, and no one would ever find you.

You know these are not the worst things to happen to you! You know it's silly to wake up in a cold sweat because of that fear of the dark!

But the dreams still come.

You're halfway through All About Steve when the power goes out.

"Fuck," mutters Karkat. "Sollux and Kanaya must be fucking around with the power again. I swear on all that is good and holy, they better figure out what the fuck is wrong soon, this is detrimental to our ability to cohere as a group. Fuck, the nooksniffer's going to get one of us killed someday."

"Haha, yeah," you say, and draw your knees to your chest. Karkat's on the couch, burrowed under twenty blankets, and you're on the floor next to the massacred carcass of two bags of microwave popcorn and a bag full of Alternian candy.

You can't see a thing. Maybe your eyes will adjust soon!

Or maybe they never will.

You try to breathe evenly while Karkat yells on.

"It's one thing if this had only happened once or two, but no, now it's three times a fucking week. I don't fucking care what techie excuse Sollux has for constantly dicking around with the wiring and fuses and - and electricity creating things, but I swear, if I lose one more project because he can't keep his sweaty pubescent hands off of the sensuous curves of our powerline for more than three minutes, I will punch him so hard he'll stop seeing double."

This goes on for quite some time. If there's one thing you can count on, it's Karkat's ability to rant. It's actually kind of a little comforting, maybe! In that, at least it's not dead quiet. In that, at least you know there's someone else nearby, even if that someone seems to be growing farther and farther away by the second, as space begins to warp and wist around you.

You don't notice at first, but his long speech slows, and then stops entirely.

"What the fuck's wrong with you?" he asks, sharp as ever.

"Haha, what do you mean?" You hope your voice doesn't sound weird!

"I mean that you look like someone's just told you you're going to be culled. What the fuck's wrong?"

You just pull your knees in tighter to your chest, and rest your head on top of them. If your eyes are closed, maybe you won't notice how the room's starting to stretch out into eternity.

"Nothing, really!" you say.

Because it's nothing. It's silly.

"Egbert," says Karkat, a little less harshly than usual. "You look like you're about to cry, and the movie's not even on. Seriously, man."

He's not talking or moving around any more, so you can't hear his voice, or the rustle of blankets, or anything, during the minute it takes you to respond, and your breathing is getting louder, you're sure of it. "It's not a big deal. I just don't like the dark very much, haha! That's all."

It's not a very good laugh.

"Oh yeah," says Karkat. "I forgot you guys have shitty night vision."

Oh that's right. Karkat can still see everything right now. You bury your face into your knees, and you wish more than anything that you could see like he can.

"I'm sure the power will be back on in a minute, though," you say. "So it'll be fine!" Your voice maybe cracks on the last word.

"Fuck, John, are you shaking?" asks Karkat, and all the edge has gone out of his voice, which makes the bottom drop out of your stomach.

There's a skritching sound, of blankets on blankets, and then Karkat slides down to sit next to your on the floor, trailing the blankets behind him. "Um," he says. "Do you want to tell me about it? Isn't that what Lalonde says you're supposed to do?"

You let out a shaky breath. You don't really want to tell Karkat about all of this! It's not fair, you're sure he's been through a lot worse things than you. "It's not like a big deal or anything, I just, you know, when you look outside, here, in the veil, and there's nothing at all, like really really nothing? And it's just all black and dark and empty forever and well I've always just been really afraid of that, and I used to dream when I was really little that I was stuck somewhere where there wasn't any light and sound and no one would hear me and sometimes I would wake up and call for my dad for what felt like hours - I mean, it wasn't, probably, it was just like a couple of minutes, but you know - but he didn't come into my room and really it was probably just because he was sound asleep but I thought that that meant no one could hear me anymore, and so I just get a little freaked out when it's really dark." It pours out of you, an avalanche of words, one long exhalation, things you've never told anyone, not Rose, not Dad, and you're not sure why you're telling them to this angry strange boy who used to hate you so much it hurt, who you hurt, but there it is.

There's another long, shaky silence. Karkat's breath goes in and out, rhythmic and quiet.

"Why didn't you just tell me you were scared in the first place?"

You laugh again. "Uh, I didn't want you to think I was stupid!"

"How could I possibly think you were any stupider? You are literally the biggest fucking dumbass I've come across in several different universes, you blithering idiot. Stop insulting my capacity to think poorly of you."

Your laugh is actually a little sincere this time.

You can feel him, how warm he is, so close to you but still a far ways away, just like everything else, just like Earth and home and the way things used to be. You think maybe if he put his arm around you, or held your hand, or anything, then you could stay here, tethered, sane. Oh, how you want that. But you burned that bridge a long time ago.

You're maybe crying a little! Not because you are a complete and total baby, but because it's still completely dark, and you're starting to think that you've gone blind, and you will never see anything again.

"Shit," mutters Karkat, and then you feel the fuzzy corner of a blanket wiping your cheeks. You sniffle. "Get over here, you nooksniffing wiggler."

You scoot a little closer to him, and he tugs you over, throwing like seventy blankets around and over you. "You are so stupid," he says. "So very fucking stupid, you're so idiotic you've robbed me of my eloquence."

"Sorry," you say. "Sorry sorry." You bury your head into his shoulder, and it's at sort of an awkward angle, but he smells nice, like peppermint and fire, and you just don't really care anymore, you just want to feel a little safe again. A little real.

"What the fuck are you apologizing for?" he asks. He's stroking your head now, and maybe this is supposed to be ringing some sort of not-a-homosexual alarm but maybe you said that what seems like a millenia ago and it was a spur of a moment comment made out of shock and you're thirteen why does everyone take everything you say as permanent truth forever and will anyone ever let that go jeez. "You have literally nothing to apologize for. If there's any fucking person in this room who needs to be apologizing here, it's me, you tool. I'm the gigantic shitheel who's responsible for this whole mess -" he stops. "Aw, fuck it, it doesn't matter."

He puts his other arm around you and you curl into his side and you sort of never want to leave. Karkat runs a hand through your hair, and you start crying a little louder, because it's gone, it's all gone, where your planet used to be there's just a big black hole.

"Shh," he says. "Come on, shh. It's going to be okay." His voice is the softest thing you've ever heard and the blankets are warm and that just makes you want to cry harder because you just have this sense deep down that you don't really deserve all this.

"When I was little," says Karkat, as he continues to stroke your hair. He's almost whispering now. "I was really afraid of the day. Absolutely fucking terrified. I'd jump into my recuperacoon as soon as dawn hit, and I'd be too scared to leave until after dusk. I'd heard that if you let the sun touch you, you'd explode into flames instantly, and so would your lusus. I heard that if your lusus even looked at the sun, it would die. And I'd just sit there in the sopor slime, thinking about my lusus burning to death, and trying not to care, because you're not supposed to care." His laugh is sort of bitter. "You're not supposed to fucking care about anything. But. Yeah, I get it. Sometimes everything's just terrifying, it's disgustingly stupid and we're both disgustingly pathetic but there you go."

He pauses, and you think, this is the Karkat I know. Not the one he pretends to be, but the one who would let Eridan cry on his shoulder if he needed it, who roleplays with Nepeta and gently keeps Equius in line and whose love for every single atom of existence comes bursting out of him - sometimes in screamed curses, and sometimes in the way he's just there, a rock, a universal constant.

"I miss him."

His voice cracks too, pubescent and weak, and you maybe love this boy a little for that. You hear him turn his head away, but you clumsily reach for where you think his face is, and wipe away his tears best you can.

"You're going to stain something," he mutters.

"I don't care," you say, and you don't. "I miss my dad too."

"I know," says Karkat. "I see the way you look sometimes, just - I noticed."

This boy is extraordinary in a deep, aching sort of way, in a way that makes you blister and shiver.

You wrap your arms around his chest. You feel wrung out and tear-heavy, and you can feel yourself dropping into sleep. "We're the worst."

"Absolutely the worst."

"No one can beat us in a lame off."

"We're simply the best there is."

You yawn. The room's growing smaller, and even if the universe is a cold and empty and friendless place, Karkat is right here, and he is solid and warm, and he's not going anywhere, not when you've got your grip on him.

Karkat shifts a little and now you're both pretty much horizontal, buffeted on all corners by massive, frightening, co-produced Rose and Kanaya blankets, which is nice, and Karkat's still fidgeting with your hair, which is nicer, and the biting chilly fear is maybe receding a little bit farther back in your head.

Your hand finds one of his in the dark. It's burning hot and calloused, and his nails are sharp, but he rubs his thumb over your knuckles.

"You're going to drool all over my shirt, aren't you?" he asks, as you start to yawn again.

You bury your head more firmly into his shoulder. The fabric of his shirt is incredibly soft and worn down, your nose presses against a scattered constellation of pinprick holes in the weave. "I really like you too, Karkat."

You shut your eyes and, he'll deny it later, but you feel Karkat brush his lips against the crown of your head. "Go to sleep now, stupid."

He's heavy underneath you. The slow _shoosh_ of his breathing is like waves beating against a rock. When you sleep, it's quiet, and there are no dreams. Only light.


End file.
